Chapter 27

He could not believe his luck. He watched as the two young women who were trying to figure out who he was, were actually leaving Grangeville. He could not figure out why they were doing it, but it did mean that two less people would be around when he completed his next “cleansing.” He was sure that they had no idea why he was doing it but this would be the one that would explain it to them all; if they were even half as intelligent as he thought that they were.

Roger was sick and tired of everyone telling him what he could and could not do. It was bad enough that his own mother would not listen to him and always told him that he needed to take care of things that were not his own problem. Couldn’t she see that he had more important things to take care of rather than the laundry? He had better things to do rather than take care of her. He knew that he was going to have to take care of his mother once his father passed away but it didn’t make it any better. He had his own life and yet she did not seem to want to see that.

“Mom, I have to get going right now.”

“No, Son, I need you to say here and take care of me. I am not feeling very well.”

“Can’t you tell that I am all dressed and ready to head out the door? What ever you nee me to do can wait. No, I mean it is going to have to wait. I am too busy and you will just have to wait.”

He could tell that this angered his mother but he didn’t really care. No, that is wrong, he did care but he had something that he needed to take care of and he did not need his mother getting in the way. That was very important and now that he found out that half of the investigation team was out of town, he needed to take advantage of that. He already had his target chosen and now all he needed to do was execute the plan.

As he was heading out the door, Roger heard his mother yelling at him. The best thing that I can do is ignore her. If I listen to what she has to say then I will never get out of the house and that would be a disaster. I need to get this completed before those two women get back on the plane to come back here. John had no idea where they had gone but he did not think that it was going to impact the outcome. There was no way that they could find anything out about those that he “cleansed.” He had chosen them as such. Yes, there was a connection, but it was not what everyone expected.

I can’t wait until the world finds out why I am doing this, thought John. Once they have that figured out they will all thank me for doing this. The world is such a better place without these people in the world. I can’t believe that someone has not tried to do this before. It is so perfect and once they are gone, we can all live in peace; every last one of us.

Roger was careful to have his .22 with him. He did not like using it but it was the only weapon that he had not used yet. He was trying to make sure that it would be hard for them to connect any of the crimes to him. Even if they were able to figure out that he had done one of them, he did not want any of the others to be connected to him. Yes it was true that he had left his signature in the “cleansed” blood but there was nothing else that he had done at every one of the crime scenes. He did not want to be seen as doing something as a serial type of person. There was a reason behind each and every one of these “cleansings” and they needed to know that. He knew that after this next person was gone they should be able to figure out what the connections were.

He was driving to the home of the woman who needed the most “cleansing” of all. They would all understand what was going on once she was gone. It should put all of the pieces of the puzzle together. If they could not figure out why they were being taken off of the earth after this woman was taken care of then they were most defiantly stupid. He did not like to think of the police as being stupid but they had been so far and he did not put it past them to continue to be that way.

When he arrived at the home of Ms. Tillerman, he was surprised to see that she was sitting in the front yard, drinking tea and reading a book. He had hoped that she would be in the house and that he could take care of her quickly. He realized that he was going to have to wait until she went back into the house. It was much too dangerous for him to complete his “cleansing” ritual out in the open. The rest of the world would not approve of the way that he did it or the reasons behind what he did. He had a specific way that he needed to have this one completed. She was the glue that held everything together and he wanted to make sure that the adhesiveness of her personality was properly stripped away.

As he sat there watching Ms. Tillerman read her book, he could not believe how much she still looked like she did back in the olden days. She had not really changed; she had gotten older but not really that much older. She still looked like she did not like young children and that she would run them off, just as she had to him.

She never really liked him hanging around the school. He could not figure out what she had against him. He never did anything that could have been seen as bad. All he had done was watch the other kids as they played. He had hated the way that they had all looked down upon him. He knew that he was not where he belonged but he enjoyed hanging out watching them. They never really treated him the way that he thought that they should have. If they had all of the money that it appeared that they had, why hadn’t they wanted to make sure that he was taken care of? That is what he would have done if he had been in their place and they had been in his.

The worst of them all had be the Headmistress, Ms. Tillerman. She would yell at him to get away from the school and to go back to the wrong side of the tracks. How did she know that he was from the other side of the city? Did he look that different from the rest of them? He didn’t think that he had. In fact, John always tried to dress his best before he went and watched the children play at Xavier School. He always hoped that one day he would be asked to go into the school and partake in what all the other kids had. That had never happened. He was always shooed away from the school.

The worst day was when Ms. Tillerman had told all the other children to grab cups of water and to throw them upon him. It would have been okay if it had been warm outside, but it was in the middle of January and he was cold already. This just made matters worse and it made John make the resolution that year that he would take care of whoever had been around on that cold day in January.

Today was the day that he was going to take care of Ms. Tillerman. He hoped that she would remember him and would know exactly why he was doing. Just as he was reliving that day in his mind, John looked up and noticed that Ms. Tillerman had gone inside her house. “Now is my chance,” John whispered to himself. He got out of the car and walked up to the front of the house. He was dressed like a man from the church and he hoped that would allow him into her home. Only time would tell if that was going to be good enough.

He knew exactly what he needed to do and he was going to do it. Since it was in broad daylight he was going to be allowed the time to make her suffer. Her “cleansing” process was going to take longer than the rest of them. She was the one who had thought up the plan and she was the one who made sure that it was executed. She was going to pay for what she had done and for all the pain that she had caused him over the last sixteen years; it was time for her to feel what it felt like to lose fingers and toes because of another person.